


These Twisted Feelings

by AmateurScribes



Series: Bad Things Happen (to Grif) Bingo [6]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Hair-pulling, Implied/Referenced Prostitution, M/M, Past Child Abuse, grabbed by the hair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 15:25:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16043234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmateurScribes/pseuds/AmateurScribes
Summary: Grif didn't take any special pride in his hair, but it was something that heliked. Something that made him feel like himself.But it's long- and he's never really considered that to some people it'sjustlong enough to reach out andgrab.





	These Twisted Feelings

**Author's Note:**

> Posting twice in one day, but this time I'm back to angst! I actually had two different prompts for 'Grabbed by the Hair' so I combined them into one story! Hopefully you guys like this!

He's holding his sister's hand as his mother talks to her latest boyfriend of the week. Apparently, mom has somewhere  _ urgent _ to go to and that she'll be gone  _ all _ day and  _ all _ night.

Dex is smart enough by now to know that she's going to be doing something for money. He doesn't know  _ what _ exactly though. Only that a few times a week she'll be gone and come home with a  _ lot of money. _

He's heard people look down at his mom when she takes him grocery shopping with her. He'd be holding all the bags filled with foods that'd go bad quickly and wouldn't get eaten, but his mom bought them because she liked to  _ pretend _ that she was going to use it to cook him and Kai dinner. 

Dex isn't too good at cooking dinner, he makes it too hot or too burnt or too cold or not cooked enough. But he makes dinner for Kai and him, and if there's enough left over he'd go to his mother's room and leave a plate on her dresser next to all her pills as she lays passed out on the bed, hand still holding lightly onto a beer bottle. He's eleven.

And Kai is a growing girl, she just turned six, is just starting kindergarten. She needs her vegetables and protein and all those other stuff on the food pyramid posters they had taped to the walls of his school's lunchroom. 

So Dex doesn't try to convince mom to buy something that won't turn ripe or rotten, doesn't try to convince her to buy canned food in bulk or microwavable food by the packs. 

He lets her pick whatever food catches her eye in the grocery store and then he tries to figure out what to do with it himself later on.

So he lets mom drag him to the store so that he can mentally note down all the names of the foods she just throws into the cart. And he'd carry all the bags as they make their way out and back to the car.

And he'd see the sneer of some of the other customers, on their way in or on their way out, and he'd hear them all say the same thing.

"I can't believe she just goes out in public," a woman would whisper to her partner. "She just acts like we don't know what kind of work she does for money."

"Be careful with what you say," the other would roll their eyes. "She can probably hear everything you're saying, plus you never know what the kid will pick up on."

"Please," then the woman would roll  _ her _ eyes. "If the kid doesn't know by now that his mother does 'tricks behind the elephant cage' so to speak, then he must be an idiot."

"Still," then the other would pause before adding, "can't help but feel bad for the kid. I can't imagine how horrible it must be to have a mother like that."

Just that same phrase over and over.  _ Tricks behind the elephant cage. _ He doesn't know what it means, not yet.

But he has a feeling that soon it'll all become clear to him. And then he'll know where mom gets all that money from. Maybe if it isn't too bad he can help her and do the same.

Working for the circus didn't seem too bad.

But for now, mom is leaving them again.

"I'll be back before you know it," she smiles at her boyfriend before leaning in for a chaste kiss and turning away, closing the door behind her.

The boyfriend waits with his head turned to the side to hear her footsteps disappear down the corridor of their apartment. When he's sure that she's too far away to hear anything that goes on, he turns to Dex and Kai whose slightly hiding behind him, clenching desperately to his hand. 

For a few seconds, the man doesn't say anything to them, before rolling his eyes and muttering under his breath, "What a fucking nightmare."

He crosses the room to look through their fridge, rifling through it, looking for something and coming up with nothing.

"Hey little man," he directs towards Dex. "You know where your mom keeps the booze?"

"It's in the upper right drawer," he answers, pushing Kai behind him even more. 

The man raises an eyebrow but goes to check anyways, smiling slightly when he saw that he had in fact been telling the truth. 

Pulling down a tall clear bottle of liquor, he settles his elbows across the kitchen countertop.

"Here's how this is gonna work," he paused to open the bottle, taking a swig from it. "You two aren't gonna bother me, and I won't bother you. I'm gonna watch some TV and you can do whatever the hell it is you want to do- I don't care."

Dex can feel Kai quivering behind him, and he feels his own hands shake slightly as well. 

But he doesn't want to cause trouble so he just says, "Ok."

"Smart boy," but then the boyfriend pauses and looks at him. "You are a boy, right? Can't tell with your hair."

A frown settles on his face, and he looks down at where his hair had reached shoulder length. It was too much of a hassle to cut it. Besides, it looked fine, or at least  _ he _ thought it did. 

"I'm Dexter," he supplied. The man snorted and took another swig before sauntering over to the ratty and old couch to collapse on it. 

"Yeah, that's not what I asked," he sneered, clicking on the old TV. 

His mouth pulled down into a harsh frown before he rolled his eyes behind the boyfriend's back and gestured towards his and Kai's room, leading the younger girl along with him.

Dex distracted Kai with some paper and crayons, watching as she made the sky green and the ground yellow with slight confusion. He tried passing her a blue crayon when she started on the water but she ignored it in favor of an orange one.

Every once and a while they would hear the boyfriend- if the man didn't care about  _ his _ name then he wouldn't care about his either- yell at the TV about something or other. Dex thought he might have been watching some sports game, but he didn't care about what he was watching, he only cared about how every time he yelled Kai would flinch and put her hands over her head. 

It took him a few minutes to pry the locked arms off of each other, and just when he thought that the man had finally calmed down, he would yell again, and the arms would go back up.

It was only until later when he quietly padded out of the room to start making dinner for the both of them did something bad happen.

Seeing that the boyfriend was watching the TV, the channel now on a news report about a man who was recently arrested for trying to kill his kids and wife. The volume was down low, and it looked as if the man was half asleep.

Dex tried his best to be quiet as he opened the fridge, eyes immediately landing on the egg cartoon and deciding that an omelet would be the easiest thing to make without causing too much of a ruckus. He opened the carton, pulling out two eyes and placing them on the counter next to the fridge. He waited to make sure that they would spin and roll off the counter before he went back to looking in the fridge for other ingredients.

There wasn't much left in the fridge. Mom usually went shopping  _ after _ the days she came back with money. So he pulled out a slightly soft onion and a half-empty can of spam. It'd be a light dinner, but as long as Kai went to bed with an almost full stomach he didn't see what the problem was.

Reaching for the cupboards that he could access without a stool, he pulled out a cheap plastic bowl. Opening the utensil drawer he got out a fork and went about his way to start making the omelet. 

He ran his hands under the faucet water, not bothering to dry them before he picked up the first egg. Dex tried to be careful when he hit it against the side of the bowl, and he winced when he used a little too much force. Lifting it up he separated the two halves, watching as the yolk dripped down into the bowl. He shook the empty shell a little bit, wanting to make sure he got all the egg white out. Then he did the same with the second egg.

Throwing out the empty shells, he frowns at the little specks of white on the inside of the bowl. Grabbing a napkin he picked out the small eggshells, doing his best to get all of them, and when he was done he threw out the napkin. 

Picking up the fork, he beat the eggs until it became all yellow, with clear spots in between. Setting the bowl aside for now, he picked up the onion and went towards the little trash bin to peel off the outer layers of it.

He made sure that the layer he stopped on didn't have any brown on it, and he blinked away the tears that had stung at his eyes as he did so. Heading back towards the sink, he ran the vegetable under the cool water, twisting the knob to turn it off when he was done. 

They didn't really have a cutting board to use so he got one of the paper plates and placed the onion on it. Getting out a relatively sharp knife, he cut both ends off and threw them away.

With a quick glance at the den, he was pretty sure that the boyfriend was thoroughly asleep. He probably wouldn't be woken up by his cooking.

Going back to the onion he cut it down the middle, before making thin slices out of it and placing them into the bowl with the eggs. 

Now he had to get his stool to reach the frying pan. It clinked against all the other useless cookware, and Dex had to wince as it did so, shooting a quick glance at the man snoring away on the couch.

Grabbing it tightly by the handle, he yanked it out of the cupboard, thinking that it was free from all the other items. He didn't expect for it to be the one thing  _ stabilizing _ all the other cookware in the cupboards. Yelping as he saw everything fall out, clanging harshly against each other and the ground, he tilted back and fell flat on his back, heading slamming against the cold, hard floor.

His head pounded and he clenched his eyes closed.

He opened them in pain when he felt something- someone-  _ yank hard against his hair. _ Yelling from pain, his arms reached up to grab weakly at the much larger hand that was pulling tightly at his long curls.

"Just what the  _ fuck _ do you think you're doing," the boyfriend snarled down at him. 

He opened his mouth to try to explain himself, but he was cut off as he felt his hair get  _ yanked _ again.

"I don't give a fuck what you  _ think _ you were doing," he let go for just a second, nails scraping harshly against his scalp, as he adjusted his grip. "What you  _ really _ were doing is making a  _ fucking _ mess."

Yanking his hair hard enough to force Dex off the floor, knees bent against the tiles, he watches as the boyfriend deliberately knocks the bowl off the counter, the fork skidding across the floor bouncing on contact. The contents of the bowl spilled all over him, and Dex shuddered at the slimy texture as it slid off his face, his hair, and all over his shirt.

"See?" the man gestured down at his shaking form, not caring about how hard Dex was pressing his lips together, trying his hardest not to cry. "Look at you, this why you should  _ rely on adults to do things for you. _ Don't try to do things yourself, do you understand me?"

Dex didn't say anything, he felt the tears build up and he didn't want to breathe because he knows that with a shaky exhale he'll be all that much closer to crying.

He gasps again, tears sliding down his face in an odd caress that didn't make him feel any better, as that man- that  _ bastard- _ yanks and twists the hair in his grasp again, demanding, "I said,  _ do you understand me?" _

"Ye-  _ yes," _ he cries out. 

With one last rough, hard,  _ cruel _ wrench, the bastard lets go of his hair. Dex sees strands of hair flutter to the ground and his scalp feels  _ wet. _

That bastard looks down at him and rolls his eyes as he says, "Clean this fucking mess up, for God's sake. Then yourself."

And he just, walks away.

And Dex watches him go.

But then he pulls himself up, he pads over to get some paper towels and he cleans the mess up off the floor. And he puts away all the pans and skillets and pots that fell out of the cupboard. And then picks up the bowl and fork and he puts it in the sink and amends that he can clean that later. 

And then he turns and walks toward the bathroom, opening the door and closing it quietly. He rests his back against it and he just  _ takes a moment to take deep breaths and blink back the tears. _

Lifting himself away from the door, he stumbles towards the shower as he takes off his shirt, discarding it against the floor. And he takes off the rest of his clothes, throwing it wherever and he turns on the shower and waits for it to get warm.

Teasing his fingers underneath the shower head he feels that it's warm enough to get in, so he does. He watches as the egg goop gets washed off of his face and his hair, and he sees red bleed into the water below, accompanied by the stinging pain as the water beats down against his scalp.

The water hides his tears pretty well. And the sound as it beats against his back and the bottom of the tub drowns out his sobs.

He stays underneath the water until it turns cold, prickling against his skin. To which he lifts one leg out of the tub and against the towel against the side of the tub. The second leg follows the other, and he just stands there. Water dripping, dripping down his back onto the floor. 

He's eleven.

Leaning his head forward, his hair swoops and cradles his face,  _ and he hates it. _

He takes quick strides towards the medicine cabinet and opens it up to pull out a pair of scissors. 

This time he yanks his  _ own _ hair, pulls it roughly in front of him and just cuts away. With angry strikes he just hacks at his hair, watching dismally as it falls down. But he doesn't stop, he doesn't stop because he can still feel that bastards nails scrape across the top of his head. 

He doesn't stop until the once long curls are short and pulled tightly against his head. 

There's nothing to grab, and if someone tried they would come up short. 

Looking in the mirror and seeing how different his hair looks now he decides that he _hates it._

Looking down at the clumps of hair he already regrets it.

He doesn't clean it up.

Dex walks out wearing but his shirt, feeling a cold chill against the back of his neck. He walks back towards the kitchen because Kai needs  _ something _ to eat. And he stalks pass that bastard, who just looks at him, liquor bottle just touching his lips.

"At least now I can  _ tell _ you're a boy," he quips. 

Dex ignores him, heading straight for his snack stash that he  _ never _ wanted to use as a substitute for a good dinner. But he's in no mood for a repeat of what had happened.

So he grabs a bag of chips and goes back to his room, and he just hands it to Kai who is gawking at the mess he made of his hair.

And he ignores his baby sister as she whimpers and asks him what happened over and over, but he doesn't answer. Instead, he lies down on his bed, turns his back to her, and just closes his eyes.

The next morning mom is back and she has a lot of money. And she's smiling at that bastard until she makes eye contact with Dex and her smile drops.

Then her eyes dart to that bastard and she's angry. There's a lot of yelling and mom kicks him out of the apartment, telling him to never come back.

She scoops Dex into her arms, and makes apologies, saying that she should have never let her darling child in the hands of that bastard. She cries woes of how her beautiful son had his hair ruined by someone who was  _ clearly _ jealous of him, the epitome of youth.

Dex doesn't tell her that it was  _ him _ who ruined his hair. That he made the decision to tarnish it himself.

He wants to ask why his mom only cares about him when his appearance changed, why she never really cared before when one of her boyfriends roughed him up but left his hair untouched.

He wants to ask if it has something to do with the circus, as mom always goes on and on about her looks, and Kai's looks when she gets older. But never how he looked.

Until now that it is.

He wants to let his hair grow out, but he also doesn't. He feels uncomfortable in his own skin, having his hair so short. But the thought of having it long again- long enough for someone to grab, just makes him shudder and want to cry all over again.

It's wild and uneven, his left side is far shorter than the right side, and he just knows that he did something wrong when cutting it. 

For all that his mom cries about how his hair was ruined, she didn't do anything to fix it herself.

And Dex just... couldn't bring himself to care.

* * *

Simmons watched as the other Blues and Reds filed out of the prison hold, feeling empty at what just happened. At the truth about-

The truth about Church.

"Oh, and before I go," Simmons watched as Temple paused before the entrance, turning around back towards the cells.

Simmons expected him to continue his monologuing, his gloating over how he had bested and fooled them. 

He didn't expect him to stride up to the cell that was holding Grif and demand, "Take your helmet off."

"Excuse me," Grif's voice sounded hard, and Simmons could read his body language well enough to know that he was tense. He watched as Grif clenched his fists, refraining from trying to reach past the bars to hurt Temple.

"You heard me," Temple sounded smug. "I said,  _ take off your helmet." _

"Why the fuck, would I  _ ever _ do that," Simmons could hear the glare in his voice.

"I just want to see something," Temple quipped. He reached for his gun and aimed it straight at his head. "Either you take off your helmet, or I can pry it off of your corpse."

Simmons watched as his hand shook slightly, and he  _ knew it was just a bluff. _ But he didn't want to say anything in case he was wrong.

Grif was silent for a few seconds, before raising up his hands and complying. Simmons knew that  _ he _ knew that there was no use in fighting when they were clearly at a disadvantage.

With practiced ease, he unlatched his helmet and pulled it off. 

Simmons was slightly alarmed to see that he had an unhealthy pallor to his skin, that the bags underneath his eyes had gotten  _ deeper. _ He was alarmed to see the slight sheen of sweat decorating his forehead, and he could just barely see the way his pupils dilated as if unused to seeing the natural light without the tint of a visor.

Temple didn't do anything, didn't  _ say _ anything, just stared at Grif. 

Then his hand surged past the bars and  _ grabbed _ onto Grif's hair and  _ yanked _ him forward, causing his helmet to fall from his hands and clack loudly against the floor. 

Grif's eyes flew wide open, as he tripped forward, slamming painfully against the bars. His hands gripped tightly onto the bars, trying to stabilize himself, but the grip was weak and his hands slid down from the bars causing him to readjust.

He was slightly knelt down, looking up at Temple as that asshole dug his fingers deeper into his skull, causing Grif to yelp in pain.

"What," Temple seethed. "is this?"

"Hey," Tucker called across the room. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

"This is a complete mockery!" Temple yelled, glancing back at Tucker, yanking Grif by his hair in response. "You all think I'm the  _ villain? _ Look at what the Freelancers did to him!"

To emphasize his point, he aggressively yanked on Grif's hair.

"What the fuck are you even talking about?" Tucker growled out, hand clenching and unclenching, and Simmons just knows that he wishes he had his sword in his hand.

Simmons wishes Tucker had his sword.

"Are you  _ blind?" _ Temple snapped. "His face! They  _ ruined _ it. He's an  _ abomination, _ he hardly looks human- like some half-finished monster!"

"Shut the fuck up," spills from Simmons' lips. And he feels hot underneath his armor, and he feels angry that Temple would say such a  _ disgusting _ thing.

"Freelancer does this to your friend and you just  _ don't care?" _ Temple sneered. He released Grif's hair, and Simmons watched in worry as Grif just collapsed against the floor, his hands in front of him and his hair hiding his face.  _ "You all make me sick." _

Temple stalked away, clenching his fists. Once again he almost walked out, but he took one last look at Grif over his shoulder. Shaking his head he muttered aloud for everyone to hear, "I was hoping you'd look similar to him, but you  _ don't _ and it's  _ all Freelancers fucking fault." _

With that he finally left the room, leaving them to deal with everything.

"Grif," Simmons got as close to the bars as he could, kneeling down next to the only barrier keeping him from Grif. Reaching out with one hand, he tried to get past the bars to touch Grif, asking, "Are you ok?"

Before his hand could make contact Grif yelled, "Don't fucking touch me!"

Simmons flinched and he brought his hand back to his cell, cradling it against his chest as if Grif's rebuttal had burnt it.

No one said anything. There was everything and nothing to say.

"Locus came with me," Grif admitted, head still bowed. "He'll be here any minute to get us out of these cells."

Simmons wanted to say something. Anything. But the words stuck in his throat, and no matter how much they threatened to overflow they didn't. And somehow that made it all the worse.

Grif didn't get up, and he certainly didn't reach to put back on his helmet.

Tucker and Caboose were talking about something, but the only thing he could focus on was Grif.

He always knew Grif had an aversion to  _ anyone _ touching his hair. He wouldn't let Donut do anything to it, no matter how much he complained that it was  _ drastically _ uneven.

But one time- one time, back on Chorus when it was just the two of them with the New Republic. And they were sharing a room, and they were getting used to being  _ Captains _ and having to lead teams.

That was the only time where Grif had sat down at Simmons bed and said that, if he wanted to, he could braid his hair. It was intimate. It felt special.

No one was allowed to touch Grif's hair. Not even Kai, much to his shock.

But Simmons was allowed too.

He doesn't think he'd be allowed too anymore.

Looking at Grif's reaction to the way Temple had grabbed his hair he had a feeling that it  _ wasn't the first time that it's happened. _

Simmons still doesn't say anything when Locus storms in, Sarge hot on his tail. 

He watches in silence as Locus freezes at the sight of Grif. His form tensing up, and he ignores the other Reds and Blues in favor of striding towards Grif's cell and opening it.

Grif looks up at Locus through veiled eyes, and when Locus extends his hand to help him up he only stares at it. But then with a shaky hand, he reaches out and grabs it, letting Locus lift him gently up.

Locus goes to get his helmet and passes it to Grif, who does his best to put it back on, his head probably throbbing from pain.

And then they're moving on and no one is saying  _ anything _ about what happened to Grif.

Simmons wishes he could say something-  _ anything. _

Maybe let a, "I love you" slip past his lips.

Or an "I'm sorry."

But he doesn't say anything.

And he wants to stab Temple in the face and make him feel horrible. Wants to grab and pull and pull on his hair, and not let go because that asshole deserves to feel pain.

He doesn't get the chance to. But he wishes he did.

**Author's Note:**

> This was just me, but I really liked doing the mirror about focusing on looks with Grif's mom and Temple. It was fun to write in a really evil way!
> 
> My Tumblr's are: @agent-murica (main and where I'm accepting prompts) and @amateurscribes (writing)!


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